


Going Out With a Whimper

by twitch



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Exile, Gen, Illness, Implied Hux/Kylo Ren, Implied Poe Dameron/Finn, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Imprisonment, M/M, Multiple Deaths, Non-Canonical Character Death, Not TLJ-compliant, Or Is It?, POV Hux, The First Order falls, Unhappy Ending, post-TFA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 22:36:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13374504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twitch/pseuds/twitch
Summary: Many years after the fall of the First Order Armitage Hux lives in exile with little to call his own. Only his memories and the one friend who continues to visit him. Until he no longer can.





	Going Out With a Whimper

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written at some point in spring of 2017. Before the behind the scenes clip of The Last Jedi appeared. Originally inspired by a Kylux Cantina prompt but not heavy on the Kylux. And actually, if you look at it the right way you might see a hint of gingerpilot. Maybe.

It wasn’t how he expected his life to end.

It wasn’t unlike his beginnings. His lodgings were unremarkable. A small one-room cabin with an outhouse that technically was attached but to access one had to go outside. Water for bathing or cooking was collected from an outside pump to be heated on the old-fashioned stove. A cot was positioned near the stove, away from the drafty windows. The only seats provided were the two chairs intended to be used for the small eating table. 

A second bed, a bedroll, was kept rolled up on the bottom shelf of the bookshelf when it wasn’t in use.

The planet was far from his home planet, in distance and topography. Rocky hills that might’ve been mountains had it not been for the winds that buffeted them daily. The trees were short and hardy, providing equally hardy vegetation. The temperate growing season had gentler breezes, light rainfall and glimpses of sunlight. The worst part of the year was when the cold hard winds pushed snow three feet-high against the door until the snow came to a standstill. Those were the months he appreciated the normally dreaded chamber pot.

It was one of those cold nights that he watched the older man dry-heave into the pot. “You aren’t getting any better,” he remarked when he finally unfolded himself.

Poe took the wet cloth he passed him, wiping at his mottled whiskers, more grey than black. “You aren’t the only one to notice.”

Even though his bones protested it he took up the abandoned bedroll. “And no one’s playing nurse for you?”

Struggling to his feet Poe shuffled to the cot, sitting down with a ragged breath. “They know that you’re the best nurse-maid – for me.”

Poe didn’t amend his statement fast enough for the slight to be ignored. The years that passed, decade after decade, a shadow hovering around him, was a constant reminder. “And how long will my skills be of help?” Poe’s smile wasn’t answering or providing of any comfort. “Have they decided this is how they will execute me? That exile wasn’t enough?”

Poe shook his head before lowering himself under the blankets he warmed up for him. “You were pardoned long ago.”

“And yet I’m the one who stays here, while you’re free to come and go.” There was no bitterness in his voice. He was too old to hang onto the past, over misdeeds and the treatment that others thought he deserved. The past chose to chase after him, in the way of his traveling friend. His only friend. The people who didn’t outright hate him merely accepted him. 

There used to someone else. A lover, though at the time he never called him that. Kylo Ren didn’t fall into any one definition. All they acknowledged was that he was his just as he was Kylo’s.

Hux and Kylo knew that things were not going to work out right, not since Kylo’s confrontation with his old master and his new apprentice. Hux fought for something that the First Order could hold onto, something that they could call their own against the Republic that took from the Empire. Not the reign of terror that existed under the might of Palpatine but a sense of belonging, a life that they once had, only to be shoved into the outer reaches of the galaxy, ships in place of houses, strangers instead of families.

Snoke didn’t care about a new life. Strength for the Master of the Knights of Ren was to be his own strength, buoyed by the young or younger, the easily manipulated.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. In the few communications and nights he and Kylo managed to spend together they realised the truth of the matter. Kylo worked a tentative alliance with Luke and Rey. Hux and his trusted few worked to establish secret safehouses and connections to communicate with the Resistance. Most of the communication efforts were on Mitaka’s shoulders. He could provide a cover for the Lieutenant. He and Phasma had facades to maintain. 

And had the Resistance knew that the remains of the Republic were going to attack one of their so-called strong-holds he may never had been caught in the melee between Republic and non-Finalizer First Order factions. Poe and Finn had been sent out with a small squadron of x-fighters and a single shuttle of ground troops. The less to get caught in the cross-fire the better. 

Finding their attempted rescue, which was a curious sight from what he was later told, himself pinned under Poe’s sprawled form, Finn attempting to talk them out as to why they were in the middle of a Republic-led attack, went predictably awry. He was taken away in shackles to a prison that shouldn’t have been used at all. It was in solid shape but by health standards it was a death trap. 

When he came into his cell, awaiting execution without trial, he found Kylo looking like death warmed over. Away from Snoke’s influence, a miasma of his own, left him vulnerable to many things. Treading the grounds that were not light or dark, a hazy shade of in-between, the pull left him weakened. 

It seemed ridiculous that a powerful Force-user could fall ill but there he was, condition worsening by the day.

The prison was cold and wet. The food they were given, when they were given any at all, was gruel of the most innutritious variety. He gave up most of his food to Kylo in hopes volume would better nutrition. The clothes he was allowed to keep he gave to Kylo to keep him warm. Twice a week someone from the Resistance would drop by, normally Poe or Finn, offering to bring something along. Any medication they tried to bring was confiscated by the guards. In the end the only thing that passed inspection was the flasks of water. 

He only took a drop or two at a time, trying to keep Kylo as hydrated as possible.

Kylo had been asleep in his arms, their nights spent always the same way. 

It wasn’t until he woke up that he realised how cold Kylo had become.

It was by order of General Organa, pleading her case day after day, that he finally was released into Resistance custody, to be held prisoner until the Republic decided what would be best done to him. The Republic demanded death but the Resistance demanded something that would benefit everyone involved: a means to defeat the so-called man who allowed so many lives to be manipulated, killed and thrown-away like pawns in a giant chess game.

He agreed to work with them. To enlist Phasma’s cooperation to bring her Stormtroopers into the fore, supposedly strengthening the units throughout the First Order by planting them in twos and threes into all other Starships and squadrons. Turning the minds of the easily persuaded that there was a better way. Trusted officers who Mitaka was in contact with, from station to station, ship to ship, took new vows.

Hux was released from prison on an exchange, intended to be re-programmed by the Institutes that still raised the children that the First Order so desperately coveted. His supposedly regained functionality was meant to be an inspiration, a teacher for the newest generation. 

The Academies were destroyed alongside star destroyers and ground war-machines. The Old fell and the young survived, those who never were tainted by the propaganda. Mass trials ran and found places for the guilty, whether it was prisons or six-feet under. Those who worked in conjunction with the Republic and the Resistance were given the new life they fought for, given new beginnings. 

All but him, exiled into the wind-bowl that only Poe knew where it and he was. He brought the things that he couldn’t provide for himself. The blankets and the few clothes that filled his closet were such things and though he would never admit it to himself, he probably enjoyed the company the most.

Poe’s visits came more frequently when Finn passed on. 

The next visit, when vomit in the chamber bot ran with blood, he hoisted Poe up gently, helping him back to his cot.

Pressed a kiss to the sweat-cold scalp under matted curls.

“I’m going to see him soon, aren’t I?” 

There was no need to ask who Poe was about. There had never been anyone but Finn in his mind, even when he was sharing the cot with him. “You’re saying that as if he never left you,” he commented, tightening his hands around Poe’s, clenching his heaving belly and the blankets curled around them.

He smelled bitter but he could hear the breathless smile. “Yeah.”

The next morning Poe was cold in his arms. 

By nightfall he found peace in Kylo’s embrace.

**Author's Note:**

> If you wish you can visit me on [Tumblr](http://centurytwitch.tumblr.com).


End file.
